by Phil Foglio
Moloch sat down heavily. “I wouldn’t even have looked for something like that,” he admitted. He brightened up. “On the other hand, I got to be pretty good at disarming booby traps.”
“How good?”
“I’m still here, ain’t I?”
“Fair enough. I think I might be able to build some stuff that could help.”
Moloch looked at her askance. “You said you couldn’t build anything.”
Agatha paused. “Yes, but I… I think I know what I did wrong. I have some ideas…” She shook herself. “But whatever we do, it’s going to take some time, and we’ve got to make it look like you’re doing something.” She looked around. “An inventory.”
Moloch looked up. “That’s always a good one. Place like this, we could kill a day or two at least before they expect us to produce anything.”
“It’ll work better if you can fake it a bit.” She snatched up a tool from the nearest bench. “Now this, is a wrench.”
Moloch glared at her. “I know it’s a wrench.”
“Ah, but what kind of wrench?
“A 3/17 Occipital Left-Leaning Heterodyne wrench.”
Agatha whipped the wrench up to her face and stared at it. It was. She glared at Moloch. “How did you know that?” she demanded.
Moloch smiled bitterly at her from his chair. “These days, machines are more important than soldiers. If you know how to fix machines, it makes you more valuable.” He stared off into the distance. “My brothers and I, there were nine of us, we crewed this walking gunboat for the Duke D’Omas. Mad as a bag of clams, of course, but it was a good berth. Snappy uniforms, fresh food, and plenty of it, and he paid in gold.” Moloch sighed. “Then it all turned to dung. Wulfenbach blew up the Duke’s mountain and we had to start raiding the countryside to keep the gunship repaired.”
“But why would you do that?”
“Ah, well, you see, the peasants didn’t like the Duke. Which meant they didn’t like us. After the Baron took him down, the gun was the only thing keeping us alive. We figured our best bet was to get out of there, so we headed for Paris. We had to go through Wulfenbach land, sure, but if you keep to the Wastelands and the dead towns, you can travel for days without seeing a soul, which was the plan. But just our luck, we ran into one of the Baron’s patrols, led by this… this crazy woman! We’d have surrendered if she’d asked.” Moloch’s eyes showed that he was far away. “I think Bruno and the kid made it, but I don’t know about anyone else. Nobody but Omar and me. And now it’s just me.”
Agatha placed her hand on his shoulder. “That’s… that’s really rough. I didn’t know.”
Moloch jerked his shoulder away. “Of course you didn’t know.
You’re just a spoiled townie. The big towns are important. They get cleaned up, repaired, disinfected. Not like the rest of the world.” He stalked over to the carboy of cleaning solution and hunted about for another beaker.
Agatha stood behind him. “Oh, that will help.”
Moloch furiously turned upon her. “Get out!”
“But… but the inventory—”
“Screw it. I want to be alone.” He pulled out a beaker and discarded it for being too small. “I’m expected to act like a brooding unstable psychopath? Great. Here’s a chance for me to rack up some extra credit.”
Agatha turned to go, took two steps and then wheeled about. “Now you’re just being stupid.”
Moloch didn’t even look up from his pouring. She continued: “A brooding, unstable psychopath? Fine. But you’ve got to convince the Baron that you’re a brooding unstable psychopath who’s having way too much fun to ever want to leave. They’ve got to see you eager to get to work in this beautiful lab they’ve given you!”
Moloch looked at her and frowned. He harrumphed. “That does make sense,” he admitted. With a sigh, he poured his drink back into the carboy and tossed the beaker into the trash. “Okay. Inventory it is, then.”
They turned and looked at the room. It was a large space, twenty meters square. The main central area was clear, surrounded by benches and work tables. Overhead were lights and a set of winches on motorized tracks. Lining the walls were cabinets and bins filled with various parts, chemicals, tools. The shelves were easily four meters tall. They looked around, but failed to find a ladder.
“Guess we use this a little sooner than I’d thought,” said Moloch as he pressed the bell button.
Less then a minute later, the door opened and an immense man entered. He was over two meters tall and everything about him was proportioned to fit. He wore a gray overall covered in pockets. His head was the thing you looked at, however. His face was open and friendly, but above it was a bald pate that showed the obvious signs of multiple, extensive surgery.
“Hello!” he said in a booming, cheerful voice. “I…” He suddenly appeared to be having trouble remembering something. “I am Dr. Dimitri.”
Moloch and Agatha were surprised. “Doctor?” Moloch exclaimed.
Dimitri nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! I am a doctor! Yes I am!”
Moloch smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry we disturbed you, Herr Doctor, I thought we were ringing for an assistant.”
Dimitri beamed and slapped his chest. “Yes! Yes! I am assistant! Yes!”
Moloch and Agatha glanced at each other. Right.
Moloch spoke slowly. “We need a ladder.”
Dimitri brightened. “I will get a ladder! Yes! I could make you a ladder! A giant ladder that will go up to the sky!”
Moloch blinked. “No thanks. Just a regular ladder.”
“Yes! Yes! A ladder that will carry you up and down by itself! I could make that! I could! Up and down and up and down and up and—”
“No, just a regular ladder.”
“Ah! Yes! Yes! I understand! You want it to look like a regular ladder, and when you are at the tippy top, the blades come out and—”
“Enough!” Moloch shouted. Dimitri looked hurt. Moloch turned to Agatha. “Miss Clay, you’d better go with him.” He thought for a moment. “Get us something without blades.”
“I’ll try.” At this Dimitri began to look worried. Agatha looked at him. He reminded her of some of the faculty back at the University. She gently took him by the arm and pulled him out into the corridor. “Okay, Herr Doctor, where do we keep the ladders?”
“But I go! Yes, me!”
“Well I’ll just go with you.” Dimitri looked very worried now, but he reluctantly began to move down the hall. “I don’t understand what the problem is,” said Agatha. “All we want is a ladder.”
Dimitri looked slightly reassured. “Yes, ladder. We just go to get ladder.”
They quickly came to a large door labeled “LABORATORY SUPPLIES.” Dimitri spun the locking wheel and the door eased open, revealing a large dimly lit store-room, neatly crammed with crates and barrels, cans, jars and tools. Agatha quickly spotted a rack of ladders and moved toward it.
“This looks like what we need—” She paused. Hidden behind the ladders, she saw a small, neat cot.
She turned back to Dimitri. “Oh, do you sleep here?” She stopped because the giant’s face was now set in a rictus of fear. She looked back at the bed. There was nothing there, except…
A closer examination revealed a number of small objects. Agatha picked one up… “Why they’re bears!” she exclaimed in delight. “Made from rags! They’re adorable! Did you make these?” So saying she turned back to Dimitri, only to find him huddled upon the floor at her feet, his tear-stained face raised in supplication.
“Please,” he whispered, “please don’t give them to the Baron.”
Agatha looked at the rag doll in her hand. “What, these?”
Dimitri nodded frantically. “Yes, please…”
Agatha gently placed the bear into Dimitri’s trembling hands. “Why would I give them to the Baron? They’re yours.”
The large man clasped the toy to his chest. “Yes! Mine! I made them! Me!”
“But�
�� if the Baron really wanted them, he’d just take them… wouldn’t he?”
At this, Dimitri’s face underwent a startling change. A look of pure determination crept into it, although it obviously took a great deal of effort. “He doesn’t know!” His voice, too, was different. It was a voice that was used to wielding power, but it was obvious that it was power long gone. He jerkily turned towards Agatha. The look he gave her was of someone who was unaccustomed to asking for help, but who had no choice, and had known it for a long, long time. “It’s my last secret. He’s taken all the others, but not them! I’ve kept them safe!”
Awkwardly Agatha patted his massive shoulder. “Well… I won’t tell anyone.”
Sudden hope flared within the kneeling man’s eyes. “You… help keep my bears… secret? Keep them safe from the Baron?”
Agatha nodded. “Of course. I won’t even tell that man I’m working with, von Zinzer.”
Softly, silently, the large man began to cry. “Thank you! Thank you!” he blubbered. “I’ve been so worried about them.”
An embarrassed Agatha looked about and grabbed a large rag, which she handed to Dimitri, who gratefully used it to scrub away at his face. “They’ll be okay, I promise. Now let’s get that ladder.”
Once again beaming widely, Dimitri climbed to his feet. He wheeled about and addressed the row of bears lined up on the shelf. “Did you hear? She has promised to help take care of you. You will be safe!”
The watcher nodded. He’d heard.
Several hours later, after von Zinzer had dismissed her for the day, Agatha found herself swept up by Sleipnir and several other girls and dragged off to their fencing practice. Agatha had never held a sword, but she had always admired the way actors had flailed about with them onstage. Much to her surprise, the people she watched didn’t seem to do any flailing at all. Indeed, the object appeared to be to hit your opponent while moving as little as possible. The analytical part of her mind found this intriguing, though she did miss the singing.
The girls warmed up fencing with each other in various combinations, but after a while, Sleipnir went off and returned pushing a large cart which was topped by a vaguely humanoid figure possessed of a single arm, holding a fencing foil. Once activated, it turned out to be a fencing clank, and the girls took turns battling it while the others rested.
It took little encouragement to get Agatha to suit up in a padded outfit, and the girls looked on with interest while Sleipnir began to teach her the basics. A stream of humorous comments at her expense were made, but to Agatha’s surprise, instead of feeling hurt, she found herself laughing along with them.
Relinquishing the sword, she sat and tried to ignore how the other girls now attacked each other while singing. It had seemed like an interesting idea at the time.
One of the girls, Sun Ming, handed her a cup of water, and asked her about her first day at the lab. Eventually the conversation got around to Dr. Dimitri, though Agatha omitted any mention of his stuffed bears. “We call him Dr. Dim.” Sun Ming admitted. “I believe him to be some sort of construct that didn’t work out.”
“He’s been here for years,” Sleipnir chimed in. “He seems to be harmless.”
The door to the changing rooms swung open and Zulenna strode towards them. She carried a gold foil over her shoulder. She nodded to several of the other girls, but a frown creased her face at the sight of Agatha. “Miss Clay. I didn’t know you fenced.”
Agatha experienced another wave of embarrassment at her actions last night. She resolved to try and be civil. “I don’t, but Sleipnir said I should try it.”
Sleipnir nodded. “Agatha has pretty good reflexes. I think that with some training…”
Zulenna interrupted, waving dismissively. “Really, Sleipnir. Taking a plow horse to the races?” Whereas Agatha had felt distress at last night’s incident, Zulenna had been replaying it over and over again and getting more and more annoyed. She wanted a rematch. With a sword. And witnesses. Sleipnir blinked. Zulenna continued, “I would like to see these fabulous reflexes.” She turned to Agatha. “If you’re not afraid to face me when I’m armed.”
Sleipnir looked back and forth between Agatha and Zulenna and tried to avert certain calamity. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea. Why don’t we—”
Agatha interrupted. “Sleipnir, would fencing give me a chance to hit her with this sword in a civilized manner?”
“Well…” Sleipnir hesitated, “theoretically, but—”
“Let’s do it.”
Sleipnir closed her mouth and shrugged. Some things just had to be worked out.
Zulenna chuckled as Agatha’s outfit was checked by Sleipnir. “Oh, this will be amusing.”
Sleipnir muttered to Agatha as she finished up. “She’s very good.”
“Indeed I am,” Zulenna confirmed brightly. “So just try to hit me.”
Agatha and Zulenna moved into position. Tentatively Agatha reached forward with her sword, and, languidly, Zulenna flicked it aside.
Agatha frowned and whipped her sword around from the other direction, and again, Zulenna deflected it with ease. She had watched the other girls and the fencing clank, but even her untrained eye could tell that Zulenna was superior to them all. Fascinated, Agatha executed a series of attacks from any direction she could think of. The smirking girl easily batted them all away while moving nothing but her arm.
Agatha stepped back and wiped a trickle of perspiration from her brow. This was developing into a very interesting problem, and Agatha’s anger at Zulenna began to fade as she considered it.
This detachment disappeared when Zulenna reached out with her sword and smacked the side of Agatha’s head. Agatha whipped her foil upwards, but hit nothing. There followed a series of strikes by Zulenna, which Agatha found herself helpless to prevent. The few times she actually managed to hit Zulenna’s sword, it simply slid off and connected with Agatha anyway. Her anger building, she decided to ignore the attacks and concentrate on striking back. There followed a series of attacks and feints delivered at blinding speed, which had absolutely no effect. Zulenna raised an eyebrow, and with an enormous grin, continued to strike Agatha at will while she deftly parried Zulenna’s furious attacks.
“As you can see, Miss Clay,” she said with a smirk, “fencing is the sport of the highborn. There is far more to it than hacking and slashing.” This was punctuated with a sharp poke to Agatha’s stomach. “And while I’m sure you’d do very well with a sledge hammer, which is probably all you need for tavern brawling, fencing is all about finesse, the art of exploiting your opponents’ weaknesses.” A move too fast to see and Zulenna’s sword cracked against Agatha’s hand, causing her to drop her sword. Zulenna smiled and turned away. “This was entertaining.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Those are good reflexes, by the way.”
A panting Agatha reached down and picked up her sword. Blowing a lock of hair from her face, she turned to a watching Sleipnir. “Hey…” she said between breaths, “I just figured out the difference between Dr. Dim and royalty. Dr. Dim is still doing something useful.”
Zulenna froze, and then spun about, sword upraised to strike. “How dare you—Oof!”
This last sound was caused by Zulenna slamming herself directly onto the point of Agatha’s foil, which had been aimed at her solar plexus. Zulenna dropped to her knees and tried to gasp in a lungful of air. Agatha leaned over her. “Your reflexes, on the other hand, could get you into trouble, your highness.”
Zulenna shot Agatha a look of pure hate as two of the other girls helped Zulenna to her feet. When she could stand, she shook them off, wheeled about and stalked off. Sleipnir looked after her and shook her head. “You fight nasty.”
Agatha slid the foil back into the rack. She didn’t feel good about her win. “Back in Beetleburg, we didn’t care much about royalty as such, what was important was if you had the Spark or not.”
Sleipnir nodded. “Yes, we’ve been seeing that trend spreading out from the l
arger towns for some time. It’s been giving Zulenna’s family some real problems, apparently.”
“Aren’t most of you from noble families?”
Ming grinned. “Some of us, but the important thing here is your position vis-à-vis those who possess the Spark. Baron Wulfenbach needs to control those who can disrupt things, the few royal families that still rule are desperately eager for things to remain calm. Zulenna’s family is a case in point. They rule a small nation in the Germanies. Useful because it controls a pass that at least three major trade routes use. Their defenses were built by the Heterodynes, and thus they’d stood off a number of attacks by madboys until they were annexed by the Baron.”
Agatha frowned. “I would think that would make her a little more willing to get along, not less.”
Sleipnir sighed. “Yes, you would, wouldn’t you? But Zulenna is determined to keep her position.”
“What position?”
The other girls looked embarrassed. A dark-haired girl named Yvette explained. “Most of us came here as children, non? So there was established a pecking order.”
“Sleipnir explained a bit about that,” Agatha said.
A quiet blonde named Gunload spoke up. “When she first got here, Zulenna ranked pretty high, if only because she was used to bossing people around. But as we all got older, things changed. Zulenna’s family is just royalty. She’s not here as a hostage, but because they’re genuinely loyal to the Baron.”
Sleipnir nodded. “Her being royalty is all that Zulenna has, so she tries to make the most of it.” She looked Agatha in the eye. “Be careful. She’ll not forgive you for this.”
